NBN Co will need to dramatically ramp up construction of the National Broadband Network (NBN) in order to reach its target of passing 286,000 premises by June 2013.

According to new rollout figures released by NBN Co, the company has now passed 46,100 premises in brownfield sites and 26,300 premises in greenfield sites.

A premises has been passed once fibre cabling has been laid and customers can sign up for NBN connections.

NBN Co also revealed there are just 10,400 active NBN connections on the fibre network, with the wholesaler setting a target of 54,000 active connections by June this year.

In total there are now 34,500 users on the NBN (fibre, fixed wireless and satellite), an increase of 20,9000 from 13,600 in June 2012, with a significant number of users joining the NBN satellite network.

“The results reflect progress in the early stages of the rollout and are what we would expect given the time and work necessary to put in place the contracts and agreements needed to get to this point of execution,” Mike Quigley, NBN Co CEO, said in a statement.

“As can be seen by our targets, this rollout is not a linear progression, but a rapid ramp-up. We are targeting to pass more premises in the final quarter of the financial year than we will have passed in the entire project up to the beginning of that quarter.

“Additional construction resources will be added over the coming months to help achieve these targets.”

A total of 10,400 premises are connected on the fibre network, with 3300 new customers signing up to NBN plans in greenfield sites to 3800 in December 2012.

NBN Co recently announced it had achieved its target of commencing or completing construction on 758,000 premises by the end of 2012.

NBN Co classifies construction commencing on premises once it has issued instructions to its contractors for a fibre service access module, which covers around 2000 to 3000 premises.

The NBN is expected to reach a peak in 2016 when around 6000 premises will be connected to the NBN every working day.

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